I re-evaluated the electrical system. I opted to go with a ventless propane heater in the tractor garage and a 2 1/2 gal under-sink water heater in the woodshop. The combination of the two allowed me to drop the service back to a 90A line from the house. It saved about $800.

The stairs are going in tomorrow. They should finish up the exterior early next week. Then the fun starts with the electrical install!

I’m using T-8 bulbs in the fluorescent fixtures, but I’m torn between using 5000K bulbs and 6500K bulbs. Do any of you guys have any personal experience with either of these?

This is a very nice shop and it is coming along nicely. I think that it is a wonderful opportunity to have a build a shop from scratch. A goodly number of us have taken a garage and adapted it as a shop. This works fairly well but I think that designing a building from the start as a shop works much better.

Thanks for the update.

-- Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful- Joshua Marine

My lighting guy told me that 835’s are most likely to simulate the color you would get in sunlight. 835 are 3500KWhile the higher K will give a brighter light it will not necessarily reproduce an accurate color in wood. From my experience wood finished with 835’s shows the same outdoors and other places in the house that use normal incandescent lighting.

My wife is the artist in the family and I rely heavily on her opinion.She talks about hues and tones of green, I talk about emerald and forest.

Sawdust2,Have your lighting guy read this webpage. It echo’s what I read in one of my Workshop books. A 3500K bulb would be a very orange light. Most of the 98 CRI bulbs that I found are 5000K, but they are quite expensive ($10 each – 48”). I’m probably just going to go with the standard issue 5000K bulb with an 85 CRI. I can get them for about $2.50 each.